The Ninth Day and the Downfall

..(W)e Germans just can't hide behind the taboo any longer that these horrors are not depictable. Sooner or later, one has to face them. --Volker Schlondorff, press kit We have to come to terms with our own history. --Oliver Hirschbiegel, press conference Almost sixty years have passed since the fall of Hitler's Third Reich and the end of the Second World War. Recently, there have been a number of films that have confronted the incomprehensible brutality of the Nazis in their drive to power: The Pianist, The Grey Zone, Schindler's List etc. What connects these films is their concern with the Holocaust, the deliberate attempt by the Nazis to rid the world of Jews. This year's Toronto International Film Festival brought us not one but two films, both from Germany, which, each in its own way, deal unflinchingly with this shameful moment in German history: Volker Schlondorff's The Ninth Day, and Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Downfall. Interestingly enough, however, neither film is about the 'final solution'. Both are concerned with the impact of Nazi ideology and power on ordinary volk, yet neither shuns the task of clearly and emphatically condemning the actions of the Nazis (and those who collaborated with them). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Of the two films, Volker Schlondorff's is the more 'conventional' in its presentation of the subject. Based on an autobiography, The Ninth Day tells the story of Henri Kremer, a Catholic priest from Luxembourg, who, at the film's beginning, is (already) incarcerated in Dachau for opposing the Nazis' race laws. Kremer is a witness to and recipient of the unspeakable horrors and hardships of daily life at Dachau. Along with him in the camp are many other clergymen similarly imprisoned for refusing to go along with Nazi policies. Their religious vocation gives the clergymen no protection from the taunts and jibes of the camp guards and camp commandant, who take pleasure in mocking and torturing the prisoners. Kremer is dragged into the commandant's quarters one day and informed that he has been reprieved and will be immediately sent home. His priestly clothes--black hat, black robes--are returned to him and he leaves Dachau for Luxembourg. As Kremer walks through the once-familiar streets, dazed by the reentry into apparent normalcy and freedom, he is followed and accosted by untersturmfuhrer Gebhardt, who orders him to show up at Gestapo headquarters the next day. There, Gebhardt, a young German officer who has risen quickly in the ranks, informs Kremer that in fact, he has not been reprieved; there was a misunderstanding. He has merely been granted a leave of nine days, at the end of which he must return to Dachau. However, he may win a reprieve if he can convince the Bishop of Luxembourg, a former mentor of Kremer's, to cease his resistance to the Nazis. Gebhardt warns Kremer that, if he tries to flee to safety, all 18 of the clergy from Luxembourg incarcerated with him at Dachau will be put to death, as will his remaining family members. Kremer has been at Dachau and knows what awaits him if he returns. Over the course of the remaining days of freedom, he struggles with his conscience to choose the right path to follow, a path problematized not only by his own moral conscience in the face of Nazi evil, but also by the Bishop's refusal to see him at first and then, once he has gained an audience, by the Bishop's refusal to relent. Gebhardt, himself a lapsed seminarian, can't understand why Kremer doesn't support the Nazi cause. He tries to convince him through philosophical and psychological argument, cajoling and menacing in turn. Threatened with demotion if he fails to extract Kremer's compliance, Gebhardt changes the rules and tells Kremer that all he has to do is write a letter publicly supporting the Nazi position regarding the Catholic Church. The role of Kremer is played by German actor Ulrich Mattes (1), whose deep sunken eyes and taut skin pulled back to barely cover his cheek bones uncannily evokes the emaciated appearance of a concentration camp victim. …

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